<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Cold As Ice by Captain_Ameriyeah</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24907057">Cold As Ice</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Ameriyeah/pseuds/Captain_Ameriyeah'>Captain_Ameriyeah</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, Russian?, So much angst, Swearing, Vampire Hunter!Illya, Vampire Hunters, Vampire!Napoleon, based off a tumblr post, basically the vampire AU no one asked for, hopefully it’s not too ramble-y, my first long fic that I plan on continuing but we’ll see how it goes, the KGB/CIA etc are basically a vampire-hunting agencies, yeah this is really something, yeah those exist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:22:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,375</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24907057</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Ameriyeah/pseuds/Captain_Ameriyeah</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ilya is a vampire hunter. </p><p>Napoleon is a vampire. </p><p>It should be simple. But when is it ever?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Ilya’s Beginning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Based off of <a href="https://yourparanormalbf.tumblr.com/post/184014406759/i-understand-why-vampires-traditionally-look-dead?is_related_post=1">this</a> Tumblr post! It really inspired me, and so the beginning of this fic was born. </p><p>First, thanks for reading! And second, the cursory apology for any mistakes on the Russian used here. I’m a native English speaker, but am currently learning Russian, so any and all mistakes are mine or Google Translate’s :) Lastly, as I have friends with the name “Ilya,” I’m using the traditional Russian spelling, and not the one that is used in the TV series and the movie. </p><p>Translations of all of the Russian can be found in the notes at the end of the chapter.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ilya had been raised to fear vampires from the beginning. </p><p>    His childhood had consisted of cautionary tales of the deceptively beautiful monsters who lured people in with their looks, their livelihood, only to turn around and murder them like lambs at slaughter. These weren’t the monsters out of fairytales, the bogeymen that lived under beds, so grotesque that they were unmistakably inhuman. No, vampires were another matter entirely.</p><p>    They looked like humans, at a glance. Even after a second, closer look, it was difficult to differentiate between someone truly alive and something masquerading as such. But it was something about how they looked too alive, something slightly off in their composition. Ilya’s mother always told him to watch out for people with too-bright eyes and hair just slightly too rich, with lips and cheeks a little too rosy and impossibly white teeth. Look for people who looked like they were trying too hard to look alive, like they were compensating for something. </p><p>    Of course, when Ilya was five, it seemed like every beautiful stranger fit those criteria, his child’s eyes viewing the world with a sense of wonder and fear. His mother assured him that he was safe; his father would always be there to protect them. </p><p>    By the time Ilya was seven, he had stopped viewing every passing stranger as a threat, much more focused playing with the neighbor boys in the street than he was about scrutinizing passers-by. He had his father to look out for him, and every boy has the utmost faith in their father. </p><p>    That changed when Ilya was ten, and the Kremlin came for his father. The Battle of Moscow had ended just days before, his mother not quite recovered from the stress of the German’s months-long attempts for the city, and now there were agents of the government forcibly removing his father from their Moscow home.<br/>
The last words his father said to him before he was sent to the gulag were “береги свою маму!” </p><p>    The last shreds of childhood that he hung on to - of which there were few, after weeks of digging trenches in October and months more of air raids - were gone, taken from him in more ways than one. His vision was filled with dreams of war, and without his father to protect them from every evil, his vision was once again overwhelmed by walking nightmares of too-perfect people. </p><p>    Over the next five years, Ilya became more and more isolated, both by his peers and their families, but also through his own design. It was just him and his mother against the world. </p><p>    Well, and his mother’s… “gentleman callers,” as she liked to refer to them. They concerned him more than anything else - even excluding the threat of the supernatural, men were cruel. But she was doing what she had to do to keep them alive, and Ilya trusted his mother. Her judgement hadn’t failed them yet. </p><p>    Ilya was sixteen when that trust finally made him lax. In five years, there had never been any incidents, other than the time when Ilya was fourteen and he had broken one man’s nose for being exceptionally impolite. So, when his mother sent him to the grocery store when one of her callers arrived, he hesitantly left his typical sentry spot at their tiny kitchen table, allowing a soft peck on the cheek as she handed him a scribbled grocery list. </p><p>    He brushed past the man in their doorway without so much as a second glance. </p><p>    That proved to be the worst mistake of his life. </p><p>    He returned to his mother’s apartment about thirty minutes later, paper bag full of produce in one arm while he pulled his key out of his pocket with his free hand. He opened the door, calling out, “Мама?” As he closed the door behind him. </p><p>    The silence in the apartment immediately set Ilya on edge, so instead of stepping further into the room, he peered into the kitchen from the front door.</p><p>    Instead of his mother starting dinner, like Ilya expected, he found her in the middle of the broken kitchen table, like she had been thrown into it with such force that it broke underneath her. Immediately, the paper bag of groceries slipped out of his arms, sending produce tumbling over the floor as he ran towards his mother’s side. </p><p>    He frantically shook her, panic rising in his chest as she refused to rouse. When she wouldn’t move, his trembling hands went to her neck, and carefully twisted her limp head. That’s when he saw them. The two puncture marks, evenly spaced and ringed with blood, directly over her carotid artery. </p><p>    Ilya felt his stomach drop. His trembling hands stilled as he looked at her pale face. The site of her, body hopelessly limp, lips tinged ever-so-slightly blue, cheeks devoid of their normal rosy hue, and blonde hair fanned out around her head like a halo, was seared into his mind. </p><p>    He removed his hands from her lifeless body and stood. The panic that had clutched at his heart let go, subsiding until all that he felt was rage. </p><p>    Ilya thought that he had experienced rage before, first when he was twelve and broke Ivan’s arm after he made fun of his mother, and then again when he was fourteen and broke that man’s nose. That red-hot, all-consuming anger was instantaneous, but didn’t linger in his veins. </p><p>    This? This was cold and slow. It started in the tips of his fingers and slowly spread until it found its way to his heart, slowing its racing beat to a steady pace. This was something dangerous and deep, something permanent, meant to be carried with him like a precious gift. </p><p>    It was the new-found ice in his veins that helped him gather up the bruised fruit and vegetables and put them on the small countertop, and then walk over to the fridge, where a phone number had been pinned for five years. It let him dial with no hesitation, and answer without a waver in his voice. </p><p>    “Меня зовут Илья Курякин, и я звоню по поводу работы.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>“береги свою маму!” - Take care of your mother! </p><p>“Мама?” - Mom? </p><p>“Меня зовут Илья Курякин, и я звоню по поводу работы.” - My name is Ilya Kuryakin, and I’m calling about a job. </p><p>Let me know what you think down in the comments! The next chapter is Napoleon’s Beginning :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Napoleon’s Beginning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Napoleon’s a monster. </p><p>It just took him a while to realize it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey guys! </p><p>First, I want to apologize for the insanely long wait! I attend a military academy for school, and training this summer meant no technology for about five weeks. Since it’s been about three months... well, no excuses for the rest of the time other than the fact that life is insanely busy here! </p><p>I hope you all like this chapter - it’s still following that darker vibe, but I promise the plan isn’t for it to all be like this! I have a lot more planned for these two, so don’t you worry :)</p><p>(Also, just as a note in case this is a trigger for anybody - there are some pretty clear mentions of abuse here, although there are no depictions, so if that’s something that bothers you for any reason, be careful!)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Napoleon never worried about the beautiful monsters cloaked as people that walked amongst their midst.</p><p>He had already seen the worst that the world could offer. His monsters weren’t the kind with an unworldly beauty that dragged you in. His monsters had his blue eyes, had his face, and his blood on their knuckles. His monsters were real.</p><p>And they certainly weren’t beautiful. </p><p>The first time Napoleon realized that he needn’t worry about those beautiful monsters was when he was five years old, and he came home to his father beating his mother black and blue in their run-down Brooklyn apartment. That was the first time he realized that there were so much worse things to fear than monsters that would lure you in and drain you dry. </p><p>So, so many worse things. </p><p>Napoleon, age seven, trying to explain away to his teacher why he was walking with a limp. </p><p>Age ten, the first time he tried to snatch a wallet from a passerby but not quite managing to get away because his broken ribs made it impossible to run. </p><p>Thirteen. Finally adept at picking pockets and explaining away his injuries, and telling his teacher and the few friends that he has that he tripped on the rug in the entryway and ate the doorknob. </p><p>Fifteen. Missing a week of school. When he finally shows up, he’s got a hefty black eye, but this time he has scabbed knuckles and a grin on his face to match. </p><p>By 1945, as soon as he turned sixteen, it was easy to find someone who would forge a birth certificate for him. When he went to the enlistment center, the lie rolled easily off of his tongue when they asked how old he was. “I turned eighteen yesterday, sir,” Napoleon said to the tired looking clerk, and when the man looked up, he flashed him a bright, genuine smile. </p><p>They never asked any questions after that.</p><p>Besides, Napoleon was excited to go off to war. Because he knew it couldn’t be any worse than the misery he’d had at home. </p><p>And he’d been right. </p><p>Off in Europe, Napoleon had certainly seen some horrible things. Right before Hitler’s defeat, his unit had been one of the ones to stumble upon the German prison camps. Really, they were more death camps, but none of the soldiers ever said that. </p><p>Some of his fellow soldiers had been horrified, throwing up after seeing rows upon rows of emaciated bodies in tiny wooden buildings and ten times more bodies in shallowly dug mass graves. </p><p>Some had gotten angry and had to stalk off into the nearby forests to scream and yell and rage at the world that had allowed something so cruel to happen, that had allowed people to be such monsters. </p><p><i>What person could do something like this?</i> People would ask - vampires were not even mentioned. This was the work of human beings, they knew, and they couldn’t fathom who could do something so… monstrous. </p><p>But Napoleon looked into the eyes of the people in those huts, barely alive, and it felt like he was looking in a mirror back in Brooklyn. The resignation. The numbness. </p><p>He knew how people could be monsters. The brutality of the war didn’t surprise him, not even those German death camps. The familiarity of it was almost comfortable, only here, nobody knew that he was the kid who’s dad came home from his shift on the docks to beat the shit out of his kid and his wife. Here, Napoleon could be anybody. </p><p>After the war ended was when he truly took advantage of this kind of anonymity. Napoleon became somebody, but it wasn’t the person that anybody from Brooklyn would have recognized. No, that quiet child was gone. Now, he always had a great smile on his face, and his blue eyes always seemed to dance. He was outgoing, lively - almost as if he was trying to be one of those vampires who were trying to hide that they weren’t alive, not truly. </p><p>This newfound persona, however he came by it, made it very, very easy to profiteer. </p><p>After years of stealing fat wallets from any wealthy businessman he happened to stumble upon, Napoleon thought that it was only natural that the first thought he had when he saw that little Van Gogh was to tuck it in his jacket. He’d always had a fondness for beautiful things, anyways. </p><p>When he realized the profits he could make, in underground gatherings of the wealthiest people on the continent, Napoleon couldn’t quite find it in him to blame himself for snagging a few more paintings here and there in his travels in the Army. What museum would <i>really</i> miss that Rembrandt, anyways? </p><p>And so, Napoleon became even more accustomed to being around the worst human beings that the world could offer. The kind who would buy artwork stolen by Nazis were often the same people who would pit two dogs in a ring against each other, just because it was something illegal they could bet on. Horse races just weren’t exciting enough, illicit enough for their tastes. They were the kind of people who dealt in slavery, the selling of people in those same markets that Napoleon would sell his art in. </p><p>Napoleon knew he wasn’t a good person. He couldn’t rationally tell himself that, when he dealt with the kinds of people that he dealt with. But he could reasonably tell himself that he was better than them. He was just trying to make a more comfortable life for himself. The Army paid him next to nothing to find these priceless masterpieces and simply give them back to other people who did not deserve them, anyways, and he was supposed to do it all because it was the “right” thing to do. </p><p>Throughout his endeavors, he was always so careful. He made sure that nobody he sold to knew his real name. Made sure none of his soldiers followed him to wherever he went at night.</p><p>Years went by since that first stolen Van Gogh. Napoleon had a reputation amongst the art underground. He dealt with higher class clients. Became quite adept at stealing art - not just acquisitioning it, but taking it from places where the world thought that it belonged. If the price was high enough, he told his clients with that charming smile and a twinkle in those blue eyes, he could get anything from anywhere. </p><p>Napoleon went to parties in impeccably tailored suits, flirted with the right ladies (or gentlemen), batted his eyelashes in the right places, and suddenly he would find himself back a week later, trading a Monet for three million dollars. </p><p>Just because they were from the upper echelons of society, however, did not mean that these people were any different than those slave traders from 1947, dealing in the ruins of tiny, old French towns. </p><p>Napoleon made himself comfortable in this new life, despite the monsters he often worked for. More nice suits, the occasional house here and there, and numerous bank accounts in Switzerland. </p><p>It was this comfort with the monsters of the world that got him, really. </p><p>That night in ‘53 was just like any other night for Napoleon Solo. He was twirling some tall blonde on the ballroom floor of some fancy hotel in London, a sultry smile plastered on his lips while his mind was calculating the next move to get to the young heiress’s father, who was hosting this party and coincidentally had a penchant for Michaelangelo’s statues, and wholly in his element. </p><p>Nothing felt out of the ordinary when the leggy blonde, slightly drunk on champagne, led him to her bedroom. Sometimes, Napoleon liked to have a little fun himself before getting down to business, so he followed her, putting a bit of a stumble into his step so as not to attract attention. </p><p>Nothing felt wrong as they stripped each other of their clothes. </p><p>Nothing felt wrong as she mouthed her way down his neck. </p><p>Nothing felt wrong until she whispered, “I’ve been looking for you, Napoleon Solo,” and then sank her teeth into his neck. </p><p>Panic washed through him, but Napoleon realized what he’d done. Comfort, he realized instantly, was dangerous on both ends of the spectrum. He thought he was safe, in some twisted way, with the monsters. </p><p><i>Nobody’s ever really safe,</i> he thought to himself, just before he succumbed to the blood loss. </p><p> </p><p>When Napoleon woke to an all-consuming thirst, he couldn’t say that he was particularly surprised about how this turned out for him. Nor could he say he was particularly upset. </p><p>He’d always known, at least deep down, that he was a monster, just like the rest of them. </p><p>And that made it easy to linger in the shadows of the alley he’d been dumped out in, and drain the first Londonite he spotted dry.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Let me know what y’all thought in the comments, and if you catch any mistakes, feel free to drop them down there too! This is unbeta’d, so I’m always open for feedback.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. New Identities</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ilya becomes the best vampire hunter the KGB has ever seen. </p><p>Napoleon becomes the greatest thief the world has ever known.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello again, all my lovely readers! As is the norm for me, I would like to apologize for the long wait! Life is crazy busy here still, and COVID is kinda crazy, and basically, life is insane! So, without further adieu, here is the next chapter of this work. This one is a little bit more backstory, but a little less origin story than the last two chapters, and we are so, so close to the boys finally meeting. </p><p>Hope you enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Instead of teaching him how to kill vampires, Ilya spends the next two years as a soldier, learning how to fight, and shoot, and run, and then fight again when he’s so exhausted that he can barely stand up straight. </p><p>He treats this like a chip on his shoulder, trains like he has something to prove, and it makes him good. Better than good. Even a growth spurt when he’s seventeen, a year in, adding an extra three inches to his already tall frame and putting him just slightly out of proportion until he puts on enough muscle to even it out, doesn’t stop him from learning how to kill ruthlessly. </p><p>The army takes advantage of the cold rage that settles beneath his skin and makes it easy for him to kill. They set him behind a sniper rifle, where he finds that the anger constantly thrumming inside him combined with his apathy to what happens to himself and others is the perfect combination. He’s steady, still, and never misses the mark.</p><p>For another two years, Ilya sits behind his rifle, his keen eyes never missing their mark, even with the iron sights on the SVT-40. He takes out several marks that way, bullets to the head, and several more he kills with his hands, his knives, his pistol. He doesn’t remember any one of them. What they looked like was inconsequential to him - they were a means to an end. </p><p>That end comes on the day of his twentieth birthday, when Oleg - the man Ilya had spoken to on the phone four years ago, on the day of his mother’s death - comes to him in the barracks. Ilya’s just come back from a mission, this time to Siberia where a Soviet ex-patriot was trying to run from his government, and his rifle is dismantled on his bed as he meticulously cleans each piece with the same efficiency that he dispatches his targets. </p><p>The older man wordlessly takes a seat on a trunk at the foot of Ilya’s rack, and Ilya doesn’t bother to look up from his rifle. He knows who it is, and what he’s come here for. </p><p>“Kогда я уйду?” Ilya asks, eyes still intent on the piece he’s wiping down with a soft cloth. </p><p>“Вы явитесь в Москву завтра утром,” Oleg replies. “Шесть утра.”</p><p>Ilya only nods in response, offering no indication that he’s looking forward to the change that he’s been working towards for so many years. </p><p>But that’s exactly what Oleg expects from his best soldier. So he stands up from the trunk, and exits the barracks as silently as he entered. </p><p>When Ilya gets to Moscow, the training he receives from the KGB is much the same that he received from the spetsnaz soldiers, initially. He learns how to wield a wooden stake the way he learned how to use his sniper rifle - with that same calm, deadly efficiency. He learns what temperature vampires need to burn at to ensure that they’re nothing more than ashes, and he learns what he needs to use to achieve that. </p><p>However, Ilya also learns that there’s far more about vampires that he didn’t know. The instructors teach him, and the few others who are in his class, the special abilities that the rare vampire possesses. Some possess super strength, setting themselves apart from other vampires and their already-inhuman strength. Some can evade capture, knowing intrinsically where to go and how to string pursuers along on a wild goose chase. Others still can deceive with no effort - lies that seem like truths, visions and presentations of themselves that seem real but are no more real than a dream. </p><p>The most dangerous of these vampires, however, are the ones with the power of persuasion. They can make anyone, human or vampire, do exactly what they say. All they have to do is use their words, and their victim would be entirely at their mercy. These were the rarest of the vampires with abilities, one-percent of the one-percent, but they posed the greatest threat to the population, and as a result, to the vampire slayer. </p><p>The KGB taught all of their students how to deal with that situation - always have cotton balls or earplugs to shove into your ears, always gather intel on their targets before going in for the kill, and if worst comes to worst, it was better to run from these vampires than to let them catch you. What a waste of government resources it would be if their hunters were rendered helpless to a vampire, used as a blood bag or a human slave or simply drained and discarded. </p><p>Like he had with the Army, Ilya soaked up this knowledge like a sponge, and graduated at the top of his small class of hunters. He was immediately placed into the field, shadowing Oleg himself for six months, helping his handler dispatch vampire after vampire, until he was satisfied that Ilya could handle himself. </p><p>Ilya’s first solo kill goes perfectly, just as Oleg had expected. </p><p>He doesn’t leave a drop of blood at the site, evidence that the stake he used pierced the vampire’s dead heart instantly, and he burns the vampire in an already-abandoned apartment building, the small burnt patch of carpet he leaves behind not out of place. </p><p>Ilya has successfully gone from Russia’s best soldier to Russia’s best vampire hunter. </p><p>And still, he feels nothing. </p><p> </p><p>Napoleon, however, continues his life much the same as he did before he had been bitten by the heiress. He knows now that, because he truly is the kind of monster that he used to masquerade with, he has nothing to worry about. </p><p>He doesn’t let any of his old clientele know what happened to him - to be exposed as a vampire would be a major loss of business. Most humans, even the rich assholes of the world, didn’t want to do business with the leeches of the world. </p><p>It takes some while getting used to - at first, he finds it hard to ignore the fact that he can hear the thrumming of their heartbeats just beneath their fragile skin, or that he can smell the scent of their sweat and body odor beneath the perfume or cologne they wear. They seem so much slower, so much clumsier, so much more fragile. </p><p>Napoleon has to put some effort into slowing his movements, remembering to blink, to force his chest to rise and fall even though he doesn’t need to breathe anymore. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to need to worry about the alterations to his appearance that the change brought to him. He had always strutted around with vanity, so nobody much noticed the extra richness that colored his hair, that his blue eyes were just that much more intense, or that he moved with just a touch more grace than was strictly possible for humans. </p><p>Or that his made sure that his top lip always covered the extra point to his canines. </p><p>He gets his first job from a rich British aristocrat who wanted to acquire one of Monet’s Water Lilies, and the gentleman was willing to pay a pretty penny for Napoleon’s services.</p><p>Getting into the museum in Paris was easy; with his newfound awareness of both himself and the humans around him, and the way he was able to move silently with minimal effort, slipping in through a window on the roof was simple. </p><p>The ease of getting into the temperature-controlled room where the paintings are stored lulled Napoleon into complacency in a way that he wouldn’t have let it had he been human. He was so caught up in the beauty of the paintings themselves - damn, Monet really did have an eye for color, even while he was going blind - that he didn’t hear the hunter sneak up behind him until she was well within striking distance with her stake. </p><p>Her scent hit his nose - sweaty, but not a nervous sweat, just an active one - a moment before moved to strike him. </p><p>Napoleon reacted on instinct, a new vampiric instinct, and as he spun around to face her, he said, “Stop!” </p><p>Just before the hunter’s stake made its way into Napoleon’s ribs, her arm froze in its spot. She just… ceased to move. It was like Napoleon’s words had turned her into a statue, and she looked just as horrified as Napoleon felt. He had heard rumors that one or two vampires in the world could do such things, but he had never thought that he was one of them. He should have felt lucky, but instead he just felt… dirty. Wrong. Felt like it took what little integrity he had as a thief and a monster and a vampire from him.</p><p>But he couldn’t just let her kill him. His survival instinct was too strong, had always been too strong for that. </p><p>As he took his time to stare at her, the hunter began to verbally protest her frozen position. </p><p>Quickly, Napoleon tired of her swears, and he muttered, “Shut up,” just loud enough for her ears to catch it, and she fell instantly quiet. Gratefully, Napoleon turned and began to carefully remove the specific painting the man had requested, and, after a pause for thought, he grabbed one that particularly caught his eye and packaged it up for safekeeping in his house in Switzerland. </p><p>After he packaged his Monet, he turned back towards the agent, who was beginning to reek of fear. Part of him pitied her, the same part of him that was disgusted with himself for being able to do such a thing to another person, but the much larger part of him, the part that kept him alive through an abusive father and a world war, told him to get rid of her. </p><p>So, ignoring the fear that seeped out of every pore in her, he sank his teeth into the frozen hunter’s neck, and drained her dry. </p><p>After the nearly-botched recovery of the Monet, Napoleon is far more careful. He doesn’t like to use his persuasion on anybody, and he doesn’t usually have to - he was a great thief before he was turned, and after? He was the best. He could have walked into the Louvre and stolen the Mona Lisa off of the wall during the middle of the day, and walked back out of the front doors without a care in the world. </p><p>Eventually, as with all criminals of exceptional prowess, large government agencies from global superpowers began to take notice. Every now and then, if Napoleon was trying to pull off a particularly elaborate acquisition, he would be confronted with a CIA, MI5, KGB agent. Usually, it was because his buyer had tipped him off to the agencies - he learned as much by drawing the information from the hunters who attempted to kill him, before killing them himself. Then, he would steal the artwork, and return to the buyer, and their deaths were much less clean than those of the hunters. </p><p>Hunters, at least, had some integrity. </p><p>After several more years pass like this, Napoleon is convinced that he has perfected his art, that nothing can come between him and his thievery. </p><p>He is proven wrong in 1957.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Russian translation:<br/>Ilya: “When do I leave?”<br/>Oleg: “You will report to Moscow tomorrow morning. Six am.”<br/>(Please don’t hesitate to let me know if this is all screwed up! I am still learning :)) </p><p>As always, if you notice any grammatical errors, don’t hesitate to point them out to me in the comments. This is an unbeta’d work. I also love any feedback, so feel free to drop a comment :)  </p><p>The next chapter is what you have all been waiting for - the meeting!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>